Israelis and Palestinians Wait for Explosions, and Despair

By SERGE SCHMEMANN

Published: March 8, 2002

JERUSALEM, Friday, March 8—
The military action on Thursday was in Tulkarm, where the Israeli Army effectively sealed off the West Bank town and its refugee camps. But the fear was everywhere: in Bethlehem, where a woman described how her son vomited in panic when 500-pound Israeli bombs came down before dawn, or here in Jerusalem, where the authorities warned of more Palestinian suicide bombers poised to strike.

The operation in Tulkarm, a Palestinian town that abuts on Israeli territory, began Wednesday night when a force of several hundred Israeli soldiers backed by tanks seized control of the town and two refugee camps, using loudspeakers to urge residents to stay off the streets. The army said its troops then began a house-to-house search for ''wanted men and weapons.'' Palestinians said four of their number were killed in gunfights with the Israelis.

Early today, in southern Gaza near Khan Yunis, nine people were killed in fighting with Israeli forces, including a Palestinian security commander, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Mefraj, according to reports. Thirty-five more Palestinians were reported wounded.

That attack came after five Israelis were killed and 23 wounded late Thursday when a Palestinian gunman opened fire in the Jewish settlement of Atzmona in the Gaza Strip before he was killed himself. Six of the wounded Israelis were at a military school where the gunman fired an assault rifle and threw grenades at the students. Israel Radio reported that the militant group Hamas claimed responsibility.

Late Thursday, Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned the killing of a Palestinian guard employed by the United Nations. He and another man were killed when Israeli troops fired on ambulances they were riding in near Tulkarm, the United Nations said in a statement.

The army said it would remain in Tulkarm for no more than three days. Israeli forces have conducted similar operations in Nablus, Jenin and northern Gaza, demonstrating their ability to re-enter Palestinian areas at will.

After midnight, Israeli planes bombed Palestinian Authority targets in Bethlehem, while Israeli tanks moved into a neighborhood there. Israeli Navy ships shelled a Palestinian police station in the northern Gaza Strip, killing three Palestinians, including a medic.

Strikes on Palestinian security buildings take place virtually every day, and the same installations are often shelled again and again.

As the violence increases, people on both sides despair of finding a way out of the bloodshed that increasingly seems to feed on itself, each blow provoking pledges of an even more painful retaliation.

In Bethlehem on Thursday, across the street from the rubble of what had been a British-era police headquarters, Suzanne Elias wandered through her badly damaged house, trying to salvage what she could. After the first attacks on the headquarters several days ago, she and her family had taken refuge with relatives, so they were not there in the predawn darkness when the bombs came again, leaving her home broken and filled with dusty debris.

''I never believed they would do this,'' she said. Her 11-year-old son, one of three children, woke up and vomited in fear. ''They are in shock. He said, 'Why do they hit us? What did we do?' I never dreamed it would reach this. Everybody looks at what happens to Israel. Nobody looks at what Israel is doing to us.''

The Israelis had struck the headquarters -- a three-story, fortresslike compound on the road south to Hebron -- three times, once with Apache attack helicopters and twice with jet fighters, reducing it to rubble. Early Thursday, a bomb also struck the new headquarters of Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader. This morning, the jets and helicopters were at work again.

The attacks on police and security buildings are depicted by the Israelis as a way to punish the Palestinian Authority into taking action against terrorism. That has not happened. But few Israelis are aware of the terror or damage the bombings spread in the vicinity of the strikes.

''I never thought of leaving,'' said Ms. Elias's husband, Youssef Elias, co-owner of a beverage distribution company. ''I like Bethlehem so much. But last year I began hating Bethlehem. As long as they keep striking, there will be revenge. Stop! Give us our rights!

''Now I am thinking of leaving,'' he said. ''Three days ago I had a nice home. Suddenly I have no house. What do my children see?''

At Mr. Arafat's headquarters, militiamen displayed fragments of a bomb that identified it as a 500-pound guided MK82. They pointed to a medallion with serial numbers and the name Texas Optoelectronics Inc. A company of that name in Garland, Tex., advertises that it is a supplier to the military.

''Tell President Bush we do not hate the Americans,'' said one guard. ''Why do they do this to us? We need a third party to put pressure on both sides. This is a big problem. Only the Americans can do it, but Bush is doing nothing.''

He spoke before Mr. Bush announced that he was sending his special envoy for the Middle East, Anthony C. Zinni, back to the region.

A few miles away, but now in a different world, Israelis also waited for explosions. In a day of near misses on Thursday, several suicide bombers were thwarted, one by alert waiters in a cafe in a trendy corner of Jerusalem.

But the luck did not last. At 3:40 p.m. a suicide bomber in the Jewish settlement of Ariel entered a hotel and blew himself up in the lobby, wounding 10 Israelis. The government warned that many more walking bombs were probably in the country, and the United States Consulate General in Jerusalem issued an urgent warning to its employees that the Jerusalem police had ''credible information'' of an imminent suicide bombing in the north of the city.

''All persons should remain vigilant and are urged to use extreme caution when traveling in public places,'' the notice said in what now seemed to apply to the entire country. After a shooting attack in Tel Aviv, the police were on high alert, as were the police in Hadera and other northern cities. The daily Yediot Ahronot reported that as many as 60 separate warnings had been issued.

Photos: Suzanne Elias, a Palestinian, in her home yesterday after it was damaged by Israeli bombs. Below, Franciscan monks visited the house, which is in Bethlehem near a police building that was destroyed in the bombing. (Photographs by Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times)